The WPI-8 certificate: what the document is, and the forms that produce it

A WPI-8 is the certificate of compliance the Texas Department of Insurance issues once every required windstorm inspection on a coastal improvement has been approved. If a lender, an agent or a buyer has asked you for one, they are asking for the department's record that specific work inside the catastrophe area was inspected and found compliant, because wind and hail coverage through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association requires it.

The certificate is the end of a sequence, not a document anyone can produce on request. The scope of the windstorm work 254 Engineering describes, and its published prices for ongoing and completed construction, are on the WPI-8 certification page.

Three certificates share the name

People say WPI-8 for any windstorm certificate. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association lists three, and they come from different places.

• WPI-8: issued by the department for new and ongoing improvements, the work an inspector saw while it was open.
• WPI-8-E: issued by the department for completed improvements. The association's page says the department began accepting those applications on June 1, 2020.
• WPI-8-C: issued by the association itself for completed improvements, on applications it accepted from January 1, 2017 to May 31, 2020.

The third one is the one that goes missing. The association says the certificates it issued are not on the department's website and that copies are requested through its own lookup, and it also says those certificates remain valid. A file built only from the department's search can therefore be short a certificate that exists. How to run both searches is set out on the certificate lookup page.

The forms behind an ongoing improvement

Every WPI-8 for ongoing work starts with Form WPI-1, the application for a certificate of compliance, filed before construction begins. The department's process page says that holds whoever inspects: where an engineer inspects, the owner or builder still files the WPI-1 first. The department's general questions page adds a detail builders use every week, that the WPI-1 serves as proof of enrollment for a building permit.

The inspector's side of the record is an inspection verification form, and which one applies depends on when construction began. The department's forms page lists them by start date:

• WPI-2-BC-5, for ongoing improvements to construction that began between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2016.
• WPI-2-BC-6, for projects that began construction between January 1, 2017 and August 31, 2020.
• WPI-2-BC-7, for ongoing improvements to construction that began on or after September 1, 2020 and before April 1, 2026.
• WPI-2-BC-8, for ongoing improvements to construction that began on or after April 1, 2026.

The newest boundary lines up with the code table. The department's general information page lists the 2024 International Residential Code and International Building Code, under 28 Tex. Admin. Code 5.4013, as effective from April 1, 2026, the same date the forms page uses to divide WPI-2-BC-7 from WPI-2-BC-8. A job that straddles that date is worth confirming with the department before the first inspection rather than after the last.

When the inspections are approved the department issues the WPI-8. Its general questions page says inspection and WPI-8 data go to the association nightly and that certificates are published online, which is why a new certificate can usually be found by address soon after it issues.

The forms behind a completed improvement

Work that was finished without inspection takes a different application. The department's system information page says it needs a signed WPI-2E together with either a sealed post-construction inspection report and its supporting documents, or a sealed design, and that the documents must carry the structure's address and the application ID. The result is a WPI-8-E rather than a WPI-8.

Which side of that line a job falls on is a question of statutory definition rather than of whether the crew has left, and it is worked through on the ongoing versus completed improvement page. What the sealed report has to contain is on the completed construction page.

What one certificate records

A certificate records an improvement, not a building. A coastal house can hold several: one for the original construction, another for a replacement roof, another for a window package. The department's own example is the air conditioning unit. Where the unit is not yet installed, the department can issue a WPI-8 for the rest of the home and a separate WPI-8 once the unit has been installed and inspected.

That is why one certificate on file does not settle a question about the whole structure. The useful check is whether the certificates present account for each piece of work visible on the building.

Once issued, a certificate stays issued. Section 2210.2515(k) of the Insurance Code says the department may not rescind a certificate of compliance after issuing it, and the reasons that matters are read through on the certificate of compliance page.

Which work needs one

The association's certification page lists the work that needs a certificate: new structures, additions or enlargements, windows, entry doors and garage doors, patio covers and decks, replacing a roof or repairing a significant portion of one, and re-siding a significant portion of an exterior wall.

Its list of work that does not includes painting, carpeting and refinishing, plumbing and electrical repairs, fence repair, gutter repair or replacement, and temporary repairs after a storm. The department keeps the full list of work that needs no inspection on its own site. Two words in the first list do most of the arguing on real jobs, significant portion, and neither list puts a number on them. Where a repair is close to that line, the department's field office is the place to ask before work begins.

For a re-roof, the department's process page says its own inspectors handle all non-structural work, including most repairs, alterations and re-roofs. The same page names an appointed engineer as the other kind of inspector, and which of the two a job calls for is the subject of the Texas windstorm inspections page.

Fixing a certificate with the wrong address

Addresses go wrong on coastal certificates more often than anything else, usually because the physical address differs from the standardized one. The department's general questions page gives two routes. Where a TDI inspector did the inspection, the owner submits a written request to the department for a revised WPI-8. Where a Texas licensed engineer did it, the engineer resubmits corrected WPI-1 and WPI-2-BC forms.

The system information page adds that the physical address is the one to record, and that where it differs from the standardized address the applicant keeps the physical address and submits the documents that support it.

What a WPI-8 does not say

It does not describe the condition of the work today, it says nothing about work done after it issued, and it is not a flood document. Section 2210.251(g) makes it evidence of insurability of the structure by the association, which is a narrower statement than it looks. The difference between that record and an opinion about a roof's present condition is set out on the roof certification comparison, and how the certificate meets the association's own rules is on the TWIA insurance page.